Charlie goes to school

Five weeks left until school starts!

Charlie started a 4 week summer school class at our local public school today. It is 4 hours a day, 5 days a week. He is not yet reading at grade level. Last summer we had him tutored by a special ed teacher and that really seemed to help. We are hoping for some good results from this class as well.

Charlie has never been part of a daily classroom learning environment before. The local school understands that this is just for the summer and has been very accomodating.

When we walked in the school this morning there was a piece of artwork in the entryway. It is a picture of a tiger cub frolicing. Besides the tiger are the words: children are not things to mold, they are people to unfold.

Emma used to have Girl Scouts at that school, so I have seen that poster before. But today, the first day I was entrusting my child to its care I got to thinking as to what that saying means.

My first thought is that pithy sayings like that are more for molding than unfolding. My second thought was the unequal word association with molding and unfolding. If you choose to mold some one's character than that person is a thing; but if you are going to let them unfold then they are a person. My third thought was that this phrase would seem like the credo of an unschooling advocate and thought of what strange bedfellows unschooling advocates and public school administrators make.

I think parenting and any other type of educating is part molding and part unfolding. My kids are all different with different strengths, interests and abilities. Some of those abilities need to be unfolded or in my words, unwrapped. Other character traits need to be molded or in my words, modeled to my students.

I will post more about Charlie's progress as his class unfolds. Sorry I couldn't resist.

Next Time: Book Reviews and plenty of 'em.